The evolution of collective decision-making from childhood to adulthood: markets, networks and institutions

在看似简单的两人互动中，成人和儿童往往难以达到最佳结果。这种模式源于未纠正的倾向和发展缺陷，这在很大程度上受到认知偏见和局限性的影响。更有趣的是，研究发现成年人在更大、更复杂的情况下，在缺乏指导的情况下表现得更好。一些证据表明，在这种环境下的行为可能至少部分依赖于认知能力，而更侧重于情感能力，如感知和解释情绪和意图。有趣的是，几项关于市场交易的研究表明，不同年龄的孩子也倾向于获得有利的结果。这一观察结果表明，支持群体行为的技能可能很早就发展起来，甚至可能是天生的。这项新研究探索了市场和网络等“小社会”中决策和总体结果的发展轨迹。它还旨在揭示在这些环境中支撑决策的认知和非认知技能。通过揭示群体内部决策的复杂性，这项研究将增强我们对人类行为的理解，并揭示为什么群体情境比两个人的互动更直观。此外，它将有助于确定指导我们决策过程的技能，使我们能够达到有利的结果。此外，这项研究将确定这些技能随着年龄的增长而发展的程度。这些发现有可能为政策制定、教育和社会结构提供信息，从而在促进个人成长和发展的同时促进集体成果的改善。该研究将采用实验技术来测试从童年到成年的四种范式的行为发展，同时评估他们的认知和情感技能。为了进行有意义的跨年龄组比较，将开发一种方法，以确保参与者充分了解他们将在其中做出决定的群体结构。具体而言，本研究将探讨四种范式。首先，它将研究涉及商品和货币的市场中的交易行为，旨在了解在不同年龄观察到的交易所类型，以及交易摩擦，清算价格和最终分配。受试者将参与一个交易游戏，在游戏中他们可以交换和购买商品。该实验还将衡量玩家之间的通信技术如何促进交流。其次，该研究将探讨信息是如何在大群体中聚集的，在大群体中，个人只能观察到他们最直接的“邻居”所做的选择。该设置将捕捉社交网络中的信息交换。通过改变信息结构，实验将探索影响人们对特定类型新闻的权重的因素，以及从本地信息推断一般知识的能力（或缺乏）。第三，本研究将分析儿童在社会学习环境中的行为，在社会学习环境中，个体获得信号，他们必须从同伴的动作（而不是信号）中提取信息。它将研究不同年龄的儿童是否能做出理性推论。最后，该项目将调查儿童如何汇总同伴的顺序偏好，并将他们的选择与多数主义、Borda和反多元主义等既定规则进行比较。对于每个范式，本研究还将调查结果与技能之间的关系，旨在衡量认知和情感发展对决策的影响。此外，该研究还将比较经济状况或学校课程等环境因素不同的人群的结果、技能及其相互作用。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Adults and children often struggle to achieve optimal outcomes in seemingly simple two-person interactions. This pattern arises from uncorrected tendencies and developmental shortcomings, which are heavily influenced by cognitive biases and limitations. Even more intriguing is the finding that adults perform better in larger and seemingly more complex situations with less guidance. Some evidence suggests that behavior in such environments may rely, at least partly, on skills that are less cognitive and more focused on affective abilities like perceiving and interpreting emotions and intentions. Interestingly, several studies on market trading have shown that children of different ages also tend to reach outcomes with favorable properties. This observation suggests the possibility that the skills supporting behavior in groups may develop early or even be innate. This new research explores the developmental trajectory of decision-making and aggregate outcomes within “small societies” such as markets and networks. It also aims to uncover the cognitive and non-cognitive skills that underpin decision-making in these environments. By unraveling the complexities of decision-making within groups, this research will enhance our understanding of human behavior and shed light on why group situations are, paradoxically, more intuitive to humans than two-person interactions. Additionally, it will help identify the skills that guide our decision-making processes, enabling us to reach favorable outcomes. Furthermore, the research will ascertain the extent to which these skills evolve with age. These findings hold the potential to inform policymaking, education, and societal structures, thereby fostering improved collective outcomes while promoting individual growth and development. The study will employ experimental techniques to test the development of behavior from childhood to adulthood across four paradigms while assessing their cognitive and affective skills. To allow for meaningful comparisons across age groups, a methodology will be developed to ensure participants fully understand the structure of the groups in which they will make decisions. Specifically, the research will investigate four paradigms. Firstly, it will examine trade behavior in markets involving commodities and money, aiming to understand the types of exchanges observed at different ages, as well as trading frictions, clearing prices, and final allocations. Subjects will participate in a trading game, in which they can exchange and purchase goods. The experiment will also measure how communication technologies between players facilitate exchange. Secondly, the study will explore how information is aggregated in large groups, where individuals can only observe the choices made by their immediate "neighbors". The setting will capture the exchange of information in social networks. By varying the information structure, the experiment will explore factors that impact the weight people put to specific kinds of news, and the ability (or lack of) to infer general knowledge from local information. Thirdly, the study will analyze children's behavior in social learning environments, where individuals obtain signals, and they must extract information from the actions (not the signals) of their peers. It will study whether children of different ages make rational inferences. Lastly, the project will investigate how children aggregate the ordinal preferences of their peers and compare their choices with established rules such as majoritarianism, Borda, and antiplurality. For each paradigm, the research will also investigate the relationship between outcomes and skills, aiming to measure the influence of cognitive and affective development on decision-making. Additionally, the study will compare outcomes, skills, and their interplay across populations that differ in environmental factors such as economic status or school curricula.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.